41 Lure O Gold 1904

"
Back to the Golden North
playing ? He was one of the crew of the lighter the whole
crew, so far as I could see
and the trusted servant and
agent of the public. Who could have suspected him ?
But of what avail would be all the explanations I
might make to my father as to the loss of the gold?
He was, as I have said before, exceedingly strict in his
dealings
with others. I would rather have been re
sponsible to any other man alive. Explanations!
Why, I had often heard him say that he never dealt in
explanations himself, and wanted no man to explain
or apologize to him.
And to such a man, looking at him for a moment
wholly aside from the natural compassion and affection
that I must feel for a father who loved me in spite of
all
my faults
to such a man I must go home and say,
"The
gold that you worked for, starved for, sickened
and almost died for, is lost !
In those first dazed hours I did not think of my own
share of the stolen gold, nor of my
wasted labor. I
could afford to lose time and treasure. I was young
and the world lay all before me; and though I had
built mightily upon the fortune that had come so quickly
I could work and regain
it. But to the good
folk at
home the blow would be terrible
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